The fact that the largest chunk of $10 million of state funding dedicated to infrastructure improvements at transportation hubs is earmarked for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport is not just a likely boon the area economically, but the latest in a longer line of signs of its potential for growth.
Airport officials announced the investment last week, and that the $6.2 million funded by the Aviation Transportation Assistance Program that is coming the region’s way will be put toward a project to expand the Pittston Twp. airport’s terminal and upgrade its Transportation Security Administration screening area.
The remaining $3.8 million will fund projects at a handful of airports around the state, including ones in Quakertown and Doylestown, Bucks County, and another in DuBois. Lehigh Valley International Airport is receiving $1.5 million to build a parking structure.
“Pennsylvania’s aviation industry provides good-paying jobs while linking communities to a larger transportation system that moves goods and people around the world,” PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll said in a statement. “These investments are another example of Governor Shapiro’s focus on maintaining our infrastructure while also expanding business opportunities.”
Over the past quarter century, about $70 million worth of upgrades have been made at the airport, from the construction of the Joseph M. McDade Terminal in 2006, to the 2012 construction of a $20.5 million control tower, to the current plans to add about 10,000 square feet of terminal space, implement state of the art screening technology, and build a much-needed lane for passengers exiting the airport who, most often, are required now to cross through the same area as incoming passengers.
AVP is hardly recognizable compared to what it was at the turn of the century, a sign of progress that is not limited to that facility.
The current planned improvements there are important not just to keep the airport modern, expandable and safe, but as part of a larger investment in transportation and transit to show the area is able to handle a good amount of growth.
Any region, in any state, could have just about every other catalyst for economic growth, every attractive property to draw big business from abundant land to reasonable tax rates to a willing and capable workforce. But, if you can’t get there easily, can’t get potential business partners into town without a hassle, it’s kind of a dealbreaker.
At the very least, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and surrounding areas are being set up to be accessible in ways business considers advantageous. Not only is the airport growing — its executive director, Carl R. Beardsley, reported about 22,500 passengers boarded flights there in April alone — but there is plenty of bipartisan hope a long-awaited passenger rail project with funding promised by former President Joe Biden’s administration will indeed get a direct line between Scranton and New York City by the end of the decade.
If that goes off, an Amtrak study released in 2023 estimates it could be worth as much as $84 million in economic development annually to the area. As important, it would open up easier ways for businesses not just in New York City but Boston and other major hubs along Amtrak’s northeast corridor.
This is money well spent in an up-and-coming area inhabited by people long-worthy of the investment. It’s just the latest in a series of steps necessary to make this region what it can become. Perhaps because of it someday, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and Pottsville and small towns in between won’t just be a neck of the woods in Pennsylvania for much longer, but the epicenter of a new type of economic growth for the Keystone State.
